I had begun this blog last week, but after this weekend I had a new perspective and decided to restart this entry. This past weekend I went to Washington DC, and it unexpectedly helped my incorporation of some of the themes of the class into the United States context. The trip brought back waves of memories and emotions of South Africa. A large part of the association was all the museums I went to, similar to what we did in South Africa. One in particular, the Native American Smithsonian, reminded me of our many discussions of history. It was a memorialization of the experience of people who are often left out of history. In an exhibit about the history of 8 different tribes in which the description specifically pointed out that it was a history that was not often told. I also saw displays on languages, of which half are at risk of being lost if they do not receive some sort of support. This museum was refreshing amongst the many, many statues of white men and their horses that I saw throughout the city.

Another interesting part of my trip was the fact that I realized I was still tracking groups to see if they were mixed. I realized this because in DC I saw the most groups of mixed racial composition than I have seen anywhere else. There were mixed couples, families, and friends from all different backgrounds. It was contact hypothesis at work.

It was July 4th, so the patriotism in the city was overflowing. I couldn't help but be slightly troubled at the reminder of how much such a strong national identity, both in our case as well as South Africa inherently contains negative attitudes towards other nations, often leading to violence. Yet there was such a beauty in the diversity of all the people celebrating together in the spirit of Independence day that it cannot be denied there is importance in sharing an identity and culture. So once again I am considering the question of what kind of patriotism is helpful and when does it turn us against others?

One thing I realized that in these thoughts, I do have much more background knowledge on the American context. With this comes a comfort in being critical of our own patriotism, while still strongly holding on to my American identity. For me this makes it much easier to think about these ideas without feeling guilty, allowing me to be more flexible with my ideas. It really drives home the importance of doing work around reconciliation in the places I have the most knowledge.

Back in the States

It has been about a week since I returned from South Africa, and yet even one day in it felt like the trip was ages ago. Home is so familiar it took just one day of being at work to fall right back into my typical activities. I was worried that would happen, and on the flight back I had spend some time talking about how I would deal with this, and how to keep the experiences and knowledge of those three weeks with me into the US.

As comfortable as it is to be home, as much as it seems to be falling back into habit, I am noticing content from our course in various places. Just yesterday while riding the bus I saw a sign outside a church about reconciling our lives with God’s wishes and spend the rest of the ride considering if this was the same nature of reconciliation that we discussed in our course.

Just one month ago I had no concept of what reconciliation was. It was a word that clearly sounded like a good thing, involved moving past conflict, but that was pretty much all I understood of it. Because of the positive connotations of the word, I thought it would be so simple to apply to any sort of disturbance. Now thinking about the framework from which we are speaking, dealing with intractable conflicts and changes in attitudes in beliefs, engaging in a process of change and working towards lasting peace, I actually have more trouble seeing how to apply these concepts in situations here.

I am trying to stay open to what I learned and how it can apply to situations I witness. I read the news and think first of if reconciliation could be applied in that particular situation. Often the answer is no. And after all our jokes, I am actually noticing and naming pretty regularly. Hopefully by continuing this, I will start to get a feel for possibilities of applying the concept of reconciliation here at home.

History

I never really had a sense of the value of history. Studying history always frustrated me because there was such a sense of powerlessness. There were so many injustices in history, and as students we had to sit there and learn about it, not being able to do a damn thing to change what happened.

I have never enjoyed a single history class. While I do realize that American history is relevant to shaping the culture today, there are many aspects of it that I don’t feel a connection to or any particular pride about. There is so much hypocrisy in America’s ideals of “freedom” and how they relate to America’s rise in power in the world. How do we celebrate Andrew Jackson when he was responsible for the Trial of Tears? I keep on getting told that I need to take pride in these events because these were people, though they may have had flaws, were only products of their time and did great things for our nation. I imagine what role a woman of color would play in the times of the founding fathers that we adore oh so much, and wonder how I am supposed to identify these white men on horses as heroes in my history?
As a first generation American, I’ve had a special awareness of my unique American identity. I often get identified as an American when I travel, and am certainly proud of many aspects of the culture which I grew up in. I do have pride in certain figures that fought for freedom, truly, not through military means or the oppression of others. Not those who fought for America by stealing from Mexico, enslaving Black people, and the genocide of Native Americans. I admire those like King and Milk, who fought for inclusion and humanity.

Being in South Africa, I cannot deny the importance of history, on all fronts. Every person we have met has told us the history of the country, each having a different angle piece of the story, depending on who we are hearing from. There is a sense of pride in knowing what the nation was able to come out of, the freedom they fought for. There is an appreciation for engagement that is still visible in the many community organizations that formed from civil society. The sense history, knowledge of past struggles, informs the action that the people take in current times.

I don’t know if I really identify with “our nation.” I acknowledge that identity is important, but there are also so many problems that arise from strong alignment with one identity OVER another identity. The idea of nation, both in the US and here in South Africa, seem to create this sense of pride, but that pride easily translates into arrogance or violence towards those that are seen as other. In South Africa it was the Xenophobic, or rather Afrophobic events that occurred last May, and in the US the examples of our imperialism are countless.

So when is memorialization of figures, peoples, or ideas in history valuable, and when is it damaging? How do we take pride in the struggles for freedom without the othering of identities that weren’t part of that particular struggle?

Transitional Justice

At UCT we heard from Zwelethu Jolobe about Transitional Justice. Transitional justice is about dealing with something in the past, something specific. In South Africa it was to deal with the excesses of the Apartheid government, and to promote a human rights environment. Its particularly important when “regular” forms of justice are not available for a variety of reasons. The TRC is applauded and criticized for many things, but one thing to keep in mind was that its purpose was not to facilitate the entire transition, but to deal with the human rights violations that had occurred.

Unfortunately, these human rights violations were limited to violence committed by the government and resistance organizations. It didn’t include things like the Bantu Education that disempowered generations of people, forced removals that completely disorganized society, and other structural violence, those policy makers were never brought in front of the commission to face the damage they had done.

Jolobe asked us whether reconciliation was really the role of the government. Or is the role of the government to provide for equity, health, water, education? And can that be considered a part of reconciliation since that is what is to be expected of any government. In 2004-2006 there was the highest amount of public protest in South Africa about the delivery of basic resources such as water and housing. And to keep things in perspective, the South African Government is working through bureaucracy and a change of power every 5 years because of the democracy. He also spoke about the many NGOs, CBOs, and other organizations had come up in order to promote reconciliation. Even during the TRC the lawyers were doing pro bono work since Mbeki didn’t support the TRC.

This idea was inspiring that the community could come together for the goal of reconciliation. However, I wonder how this can then translate to the US. There seem to be some key differences that may impact how it looks. First of all, the fact that the Apartheid government is so recent has kept the civic spirit high. Even still, people talk about how the younger generation in South Africa is less aware of the history, and surveys show they are more pessimistic towards issues of reconciliation. How does that then look in the US where the Civil Rights Movement was longer ago? Overall there seems to be less engagement, just one example being the number of people that actually show up to vote. Another key difference is the fact that the oppressed group is the majority in South Africa, and is the minority in the US. There is such a larger sense of community around identities, as well as around the South African identity in the US. So how would reconciliation adapt to these differences in the States?

Sleeping with the enemy

Today we had a lecture from Don Foster, a psychologist who spoke to us about the Contact Hypothesis. South Africa under apartheid was a “non-contact” society, one that believed that contact between different races would cause friction, and was best avoided. The Contact Hypothesis on the other hand, is the idea that if people meet across racial lines, then race relations improve. This contact needs to be within a certain set of conditions, ones where there is a possibility for intimate relationships and cooperative activity. So things like a work environment where there may be a difference in power and no personal connection have been shown to be less correlated with how reconciled a person feels. It increases as the settings get more personal, such as having their children go to the same schools, or having close friends of another race, and mixed marriages.

This conversation, as well as a recently engaged friend, got some of us in the house talking about how we have also dated people who are ideologically/culturally very different than us, and have had many positive experiences. One of the more meaningful relationships I've had was with someone of a different race and religion, with whom I disagreed with on pretty much every issue related to politics and culture. And we cared deeply about each other anyways. That was powerful to me in seeing my capacity to care for people, not just this larger vague idea of humanity.

But once again, that was in a very specific setting. In a culture that is now no longer legally separated, South Africa still is almost completely informally segregated, much like the US. So although it has been shown that those who have more intimate contact with other races feel more reconciled, that contact isn’t occurring.

I keep thinking about romantic relationships because those seem to be something we are most guarded about. Often people can be seemingly liberal about other groups until a family member wants to marry someone from that group. There are also so many other barriers to making intimate relationships with people we see as different from us. I have many friends who would never even consider dating someone outside their culture, language, or religion, because it can be so much more possible to connect with people who can relate to the things that are important to us. Or also the fact that social influences so much shape who we are attracted to in the first place, such as music, fashion, or what is even considered beautiful. These are not separate from the very inequities we are trying to reconcile, that blue eyes and lighter skin tones are considered more beautiful, that expensive clothes are more fashionable. These are issues embedded in our culture but can pass as benign, even though they help reinforce separateness. So what does it really take to allow ourselves to form intimate relationships with those who are different than us?

Pictures

Shopping in the township of Langa. Their homes were the rooms right behind the store inside the shack.

Andile our tour guide drinking beer in the Shabeen at the township of Langa.

David teaching me to salsa

Dancing with some charming street performers in a beach town along the cape.

At the most southwestern part of the continent.

Mindfulness and reconciliation

Though it is still new to me, I’m my basic understanding of mindfulness is the idea of focusing on the internal, what our thoughts and reactions are to what we experience. This idea has been applied in some of the most inspiring situations, such as Mandela’s time in prison, where he emphasized what freedom he had in his mind despite being physically imprisoned. On a smaller scale it has helped me to track my thoughts and feelings about everything we have been experiencing here in South Africa. But where does this concept of mindfulness play a role in approaching reconciliation?

Reconciliation is inherently in the context of moving beyond past conflict. In the case of oppression, the component that is one of the most heartbreaking to me is the psychological component. I think of the Black doll/White doll experiment conducted in the States, where they asked black children if they preferred a black or white doll, and the majority picked the white doll. This was an experiment originally done in the 50’s after Brown v. Board of Education, but redone recently, and it has consistently created similar results. These children are young, around 5 years old. And they already see that in the world, Whites are treated as “better.” Or I think of what our tour guide Andile told us about black children under Apartheid dreaming to be white children so then they could dream of possibilities for the future. In these situations, how much of it is internal, and how much of it is it the reality of the external situation? For children then, as much as internally they may have felt free and dreamed of the future, the government made it impossible.

Mindfulness cannot change larger society, only the way in which we perceive our own interactions with society. There is no doubt that this is also extremely valuable on the individual level of changing beliefs and attitudes, but to me seems to be secondary to pursuing more tangible change. Andile also told us that if he hadn’t had to go through Bantu Education, he would not be a tour guide but rather in the department of tourism in the government. This wasn’t because of his internal processing of the world around him, it was because of the outside forces acting on his life. Changes in access to basic needs, such as the always critical issue of education that can empower people, seem to be a more practical focus to me.

I got to hear Dorcas’s Auntie Renita over skype, and she spoke wonderfully about how important it is that oppressed people are uplifted. In that way, mindfulness seems absolutely relevant to reconciliation when considering what kinds of changes it can produce in beliefs and attitudes of an individual. But it is such a personal process, so how does one promote that for others, especially for an oppressed society? Religion has also played a large role in the reconciliation process here in South Africa, but does that mean religion is something we can advocate specifically for reconciliation? When people, especially children are told that they are worth less than the privileged, and then treated in a way that reinforces that idea, people internalize it. So then how do we as outsiders go in and advocate for a change in oppressed people’s internal processes as a means of reconciliation?